The so-called ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, and ancient Pharaonic
dynasties of Egypt – these cultures appeared on the human stage at most
350 generations ago, a biological and geological eyeblink, an
archaeological breath.

The human models that the Greek artist used for this Cycladic
sculpture might have smelled like your mom.

The "ancient" Greeks, "ancient" Romans, and "ancient" Egyptians were our recent ancestors. Their sensibilities were ours.

Who, then, were the true ancients? Were their great and enduring earthworks and stoneworks monumental messages to the future? If so, whom were these messages for, and what are these messages?

If you have any thoughts on ancient pyramids in Bosnia and
you would like to be quoted in my article, please send me the relevant quote by
Thursday, January 10, 2013. The article will be published in January 2013.

Archaeology Magazine's nearly seven-year moratorium on Bosnian
archaeology is also interesting and will be included in my article.

Whatever quote you send me concerning pyramids in Bosnia
will be included in my article, verbatim and in full. If you are not able to
reply, for whatever reason, I will write, "Has not replied." If you
would like to decline to be quoted, please let me know.

Thank you for your time and interest.

Sincerely,

Jock Doubleday

Writer

jockdoubleday.writer@gmail.com

* * *

Note: I sent this letter to the editor of Archaeology magazine by email on August 2, 2011, with the subject line: "retraction, explanation, and apology requested for statements and omissions made by Archaeology regarding Bosnian archaeology." To this date I have received no reply.

Will Archaeology be printing a retraction of its categorical denials of Bosnian pyramids, which were made in its April 27, 2006 online feature article, "The Bosnia-Atlantis Connection"?

In Mark Rose's 2006 article, we find the following categorical denials of pyramids in Bosnia:

1) "Frenzied reporting of supposed pyramids in the Balkans ignores the truth and embraces the fantastic."

2) "Construction of massive pyramids in Bosnia at that period is not believable."

3) "His [discoverer Semir Osmanagić's] ideas of early pyramids in Bosnia, which is simply not possible, has been accepted as a major discovery. How could this happen?"

4) "[T]he 'Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun' is no such thing."

Such categorical denials have no place in scientific publications, unless compelling evidence accompanies them.

Rose's article also includes statements completely outside the realm of the science, such as: "[T]he term "pyramidiot" has been applied to those obsessed with pyramids and who offer strange interpretations of them on websites and in books and television programs." Why is this sort of language necessary, and why has Archaeology not apologized for publishing it?

It may be noted that, in subsequent years after Archaeology's outright dismissal pyramids in Visoko, Bosnia, the discovery of the Bosnian pyramid complex and of numerous artifacts, labyrinthine tunnels, and ancient inscriptions failed to make any of your publication's Top Ten Discoveries lists in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. [ Update April 22, 2014: Top Ten Discoveries lists in 2011, 2012, and 2013. ] Perhaps a rethinking of your lists, and an honest look at extra-scientific agendas at your publication, may be in order.

When an official retraction of the categorical denial of Bosnian pyramids is made in both your paper and online publications, Archaeology will have the opportunity to regain its estimable position as a work of science and not a work promoting secret agendas or slander.

In your retraction, it may be useful for your readers if you reference your three update articles, two of which were published in June 2006 under the titles "More on Bosnian 'Pyramids,'" and "Bosnian 'Pyramids' Update," and one of which was published in July/August 2006 under the title, "Pyramid Scheme."

It may also be useful to reference, explain, and apologize for your publication's half-decade (August 2006-August 2011) boycott of Bosnian archaeology.

I have cc'd Professor Anthony Harding, Professor of Archaeology at University of Exeter, who has written on this subject as well, and I have also cc'd the complete staff of Archaeology and the majority of the staff at the Archaeological Institute of America, as it is not unthinkable that their livelihoods may depend on your publication's dedication to the scientific process, a process that includes objective reportage, an absence of premature conclusions, and -- it should go without saying -- an absence of name-calling.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I went out to pick up litter on a rural road in Visoko, Bosnia, today. (Watch video here :)

The road -- a meandering one-laner -- is beautiful even with litter along its edges.

The road is not just beautiful but useful for those who want to get to Ravne tunnel labyrinth. It's the back way, and you use it to escape the traffic and noise pollution of the village below.

Visoko, Bosnia

Immediately on beginning my walk up the road, I met Salija.

Salija

Salija said that the litter along the side of the road is thrown there by people from the "city." I assumed she meant Sarajevo, 30 kilometers south of Visoko. But upon inquiry, she said that she meant people from Visoko, the center of which is a ten-minute walk from the hillside.

Salija said that the city people "don't save the environment."

Jock

Salija's English was very good, so I didn't have to speak Bosnian, which was good since I know perhaps 27 words of Bosanski. . . .

Salija headed home along the rural road, and I returned to the task at hand.

Tools of the trade: leather gloves

Leather gloves are the most important tools for the litter remover. Without leather gloves, you are at the mercy of broken glass, slime, and nettles.

Super-strong Trader Joe's bag for collecting litter

A good bag is tool-of-the-trade #2 for Litter Removal Specialists. With leather gloves and a bag, there is so much one can do.

The ancients who built the pyramids in the Visoko Valley created structures in agreement with nature. Their materials were sand, stone, and clay.

Monday, September 26, 2011

There are so many mysteries in the Visoko valley. Four huge pyramids and one long crescent-shaped artificially created mountain, the Temple of Mother Earth, bring us to this question: why? And for that matter, who?

But the monumental above-ground structures are not all.

One of many passageways in Ravne Tunnel Labyrinth.

We don't know who built Ravne, the extensive tunnel labyrinth beneath the pyramids that meanders for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kilometers beneath the ground surface, a labyrinth that may connect with passages inside the pyramids themselves. We don't know who built Ravne, and we don't know why such an incredible geo-engineering feat was undertaken.

But most mysterious of all is that we don't know why the Ravne tunnel labyrinth was later filled in with sand and river stones -- filled to the brim, leaving only the underground water channels open but still sealed from view for thousands of years until modern excavation could bring them to (artificial) light.

Underground water channel. The water is still drinkable after thousands of years.

Who filled the tunnel in with sand and river stones? Was it the culture that built the tunnel or a subsequent culture? Who spend decades moving millions of tons of material to fill in a beautifully (and presumably purposefully) constructed tunnel system? Was this culture trying to hide something in the tunnel? Or -- more likely, to my mind -- were they using the material to protect the water channels? What is the water channels' purpose?

Dry-stack wall thousands of years old next to water channel in Ravne tunnel labyrinth.

How did they create vertical "dry-stack" (mortar-free) walls standing several meters high that lasted thousands of years without one stone out of place?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

You can still feel the war: the bullets, the landmines blowing children to kingdom come, the mortar barrages in the hate-filled night. But nature is reclaiming the buildings and streets at her usual pace: slowly but inexorably. Dark green plants of uncounted varieties spread their soft stems and leaves across jagged concrete scars.

Cemeteries lie just above the flood plain at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun in Visoko, Bosnia. Walking south toward Sarajevo, the cemeteries are on the hill to your right, and River Fojnica is on your left, deep in the valley. Someone told me that they remember looking at the river one day during the war and seeing fifteen bodies floating down it.

On the far side of the river stands the Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon, Bosanska Piramida Mjeseca. This pyramid, standing at 190 meters, is the second tallest pyramid on earth. The tallest pyramid on earth, the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun (Bosanska Piramida Sunca), reaches 220 meters into the sky. Below it, cemetery tombstones -- white, grey, and black -- stand as reminders of individual lives.

The great pyramids of the Visoko valley -- the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon, the Pyramid of the Dragon, the Pyramid of Love -- all of them at least 10,000 years old, stand . . . why?

The Visoko train station can be found by leaving your hotel in the center of town and crossing River Fojnica, staying left, and locating a cobblestone street on your right.

Onto this street you turn and walk 30 meters until it dead-ends into the railroad tracks. Here you find an old building (train station?) that is boarded up. To its right is another building which may or may not be open and which, open or not, is the administrative part of the "train station."

On the day I arrived there, there happened to be a woman outside the station washing some items in an outdoor sink with a perpetual small river of water running out of a long rubber faucet. Upon inquiry of this woman, I discovered that the train station in operation can be found by walking north.

Following her point, I walked for two minutes, or so, and passed a train so old it would never move again.

After another 25 meters, I entered the new station, a single-room building with enough space for four people to stand comfortably and two to sit at desks.

At one of these desks was a woman who was busy in a conversation with her colleague. Once I caught her eye, she brought out several items from her desk. (She did this laboriously, to my mind. Why not just keep everything on the desk?)

Of the items she brought out, one was a book of receipts. She was unable to find a pen, so I lent her mine. She filled out the receipt, stamped it three times, took my 4.6 KM (about $3.15), and handed me the receipt, which evidently was my ticket.

I pointed at the clock and said "malo"? -- indicating my wish, by the word "little," that the train would not be too long. She held up her thumb. (The thumb, not the index finger, stands for "one" in Eastern Europe.) "One o'clock?" I said. Yes. A mere hour and 20 minutes' wait.

I waited outside in the heat with several wild dogs who turned out to be not so wild but simply homeless. They spent their time sleeping in the shade, and I spent my time watching them.

The train came about 15 minutes early. I was not there. After half an hour in the heat, I had gone down to the river to wait. The train arrived quietly, so it was only by chance that I saw it. I ran toward it but was not able to run the whole way, because at one point the path became thin right next to some ancient barbed wire fencing.I walked carefully for 5 meters, or so, not knowing if I would miss the train. In fact, the train pulled out a few seconds after I got on, and we headed to Sarajevo 15 minutes early.

Addendum:

The photos above were taken three weeks later.

I had wanted to take photos of the abandoned train, so in the late morning on Thursday, September 22, 2011, I retraced my steps to the train station.

I set up the tripod, took a photo, and as I was picking up the tripod, a young man on a bicycle went past. I said "Zdravo," and he returned the greeting. He spoke a sentence or two in Bosnian. I said, "Engleski?" He said, "A little."

It turned out that Elvir knew more than a little English. He understood me perfectly. He asked if I was a professional photographer, and I went into a long explanation which he summed up with "Hobby." I nodded.

He told me a story of growing up as a child during the war in the early '90s. He and four playmates were playing around and under the train, and Serbian snipers from a hill about a mile away were shooting at them. None of the children were killed. "Right here?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "Their bullets could reach this far?" I asked. "They were snipers," he said. "They were all over the hills."

He said there used to be a lot of trains, but now there were only two or three a day. "Why?" He said no one rode the train anymore because of the economy. He said that even people who ride the train usually cannot afford to buy a ticket, so they either pay nothing or pay one KM (a bit less than a dollar). I told him that I had taken the train to Sarajevo three weeks before, and he laughed and said I was probably the only one who had bought a ticket.

Suddenly I knew why the ticket lady had kept her ticket book in a drawer. She had also given me my pen back.

The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina live in a different time. I bring modern time with me and buzz around town like a super-gofer on my archaeological missions. It's like the Star Trek episode in which the aliens move so much faster than Kirk, Spock, and McCoy that the frenetic aliens are invisible and their voices sound like mosquitoes in human ears. Of course, Visoko, where the pyramids and I reside, is a very small town. Sarajevo, a bustling metropolis 30 minutes southeast of us, has been infected by the Western mosquito virus. But even here the old culture remains. Arriving at the Sarajevo airport after a 20-hour journey from the U.S., I picked up my bags and began to head toward the exit.

Plane ticket from Chicago to Munich

One of three officers studied my baggage, all of which was stacked on an excellent old (and free) cart. He focused on a huge box containing my non-portable Macintosh. On this box was a nearly life-sized picture of an iMac. He said, "Is that a computer?" I stopped the cart and said, "Yes." Wanting to offer more, I stated the obvious: "A Macintosh." I was ready to produce my shirt-pocket-secreted baggage claim checks, as all good Westerners are, but he just nodded me past.